This is quite the thread and discussion and I’d love to add my not-so-short two cents to it.
Before I do, please know that my background is 20 years of experience in film and video production, as well as photography. Therefore, I am fully acquainted with the principle of either doing things for free or being criminally underpaid for my hard-earned skills. Also, for two years prior to COVID, I was the official volunteer photographer for one of the biggest angel investment groups in Canada and covered their many monthly activities, which mainly consisted of pitch contests. Needless to say, throughout my career so far I’ve met with a great many entrepreneurs and investors and heard countless stories of successes and failures. The one thing they all have in common though is whether the entrepreneur managed to properly scale up or not.
If one wants to build a lemonade stand and leave it at that, that’s no problem at all, but if growth is part of the plan, then one needs a business plan that includes contingencies for growth, rapid or normal. One of the best examples of efficient scaling comes from Michael Dell. He started his business in his dorm room and a few years later he was helming a much bigger company, and the rest is history. Now, I don’t know the details beyond what Chat-GPT told me but one thing is certain, Dell either continued to build computers himself, and hired a business manager to handle the business side of his company, or he became the manager himself, and hired more hands to build the computers.
I’m glad that MVR chimed in earlier in this thread, and I fully respect his dedication, struggles, and desire to continue working on V2 himself, but this comes at the expense of the business side of Vam.
I discovered Vam back in May and became a creator-level supporter at the end of June. Since then, I’ve lurked here, intensely, and watched the growth, joys, and frustrations of creators. Although the Vam ecosystem is quite alive, it is also one gigantic mess.
From a purely consumer perspective things are not so bad. If I want to play a scene made by WeebUVR, for instance, I can simply download it and chances are it will work as intended right out of the box. Still, though, a dependency might need updating, and the experience will be messed up until it is. The potential for heavy friction is always high.
From the creative side, that’s where it goes south. I bought the creator-level for a reason. I believe Vam is the future, and I want to participate in with my own creations. Since June, I’ve been digging into scenes and learning the intricacies of plugin relationships, textures, assets, and more. As of today though, I still don’t know where to start and what to create. The reasons for this are manyfold:
- The vast number of plugins available, some of which do the same as others.
- The labyrinth that is the CC license system. Resources use one license type, while its dependencies use others, and dependencies have their own dependencies with their own license preference, and so forth
- The rapidly evolving nature of Vam. There’s something new or improved upon every single week. Sometimes it’s even bigger and steps into “game-changing” territory (looking at you Voxta
)
It seems to me that the common thread amongst plugin creators is they hope their work will be used by creators to create something as new and exciting as it is unexpected. That’s all good, and if you are a creator that’s been here since the beginning you are at a clear advantage since all you need to be is keeping yourself abreast of anything new.
But if you happen to be someone new to Vam, then you are facing countless hours of trial and error when attempting to learn about resources, while always keeping in mind the CC system. Then one day, it all comes crashing down because someone releases a game-changer of a plugin. Massive FOMO can easily set in and may bring you back to square one all over again. Meanwhile, you still haven’t created anything.
Needless to say, the barrier to entry for new creators is stunningly high, and can only lead to hitting a ceiling down the road, where stagnation will occur.
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Another aspect of the ecosystem that hinders the healthy growth of Vam is the dynamic of Patreon/Discord used by a great many creators. I specifically prefaced this post for a good reason, which is applicable here. If you are a creator who wishes to be compensated for your efforts, that’s entirely reasonable, and that’s the long-term direction I wish to take as well. That being said, how many Patreon does a Vam creator need to support in order to have most of the tools needed for an efficient workflow that will let them create up-to-date and competitive products?
Compensation is indeed essential and is the best incentive there is, but it can surely be done using a means that streamlines the Vam ecosystem while reducing the barrier to entry at the same time.
Within the realm of adult gaming, I’ve joined and left my share of Discord servers over the years and they all seem to play out the same way; a handful of members will dwell in it, and most of the content is chit-chat, humor, gifs posting, etc. All in all, a massive source of distraction, and while the creator is busy defending the slightest nitpick, answering pointless questions, or repeating the same answer to the same question over and over again, they’re not creating. On top of that, if one manages to get an answer on the server, this means the community at large here does not benefit from it.
MVR cannot do everything, and if Vam’s ecosystem is to be improved, we must join him in his efforts. Frankly, what MVR et al. did with this forum is pretty damn good, so why not use it?
So I’m asking you, creators, imagine if you were compensated and you didn’t have to deal with Patreon and Discord management? How much of an improvement would that be on your creative process and output?
Lastly, questions raised by other posters like: “Will V2 break the plugins?”, “Will it be backward compatible”, “and if that is the case, “Will there be a fragmenting of the user base between versions?”etc., are perfectly valid, and need to be addressed as soon as possible, because they just add to the barrier of entry.
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As far as I am concerned, Vam is the most exciting thing around, and I would like nothing more than to see it grow into a healthy and strong adult, so to speak.
I have practical ideas and I wish to get involved. With more heads than one, these ideas may be improved upon, or perhaps even better, be replaced by better ones. If you feel the same, by all means, my DM is open and let’s start a discussion, formulate a plan, and support MVR/Vam with a hands-on approach that will contribute to the health of this ecosystem and guarantees all of us for years, if not decades, of awesomeness.
GS.
